Adjustments

This was the weekend for the long-awaited memorial service for my grandma that passed almost a year ago during COVID. It was also my first flight since January 2019. Many remarkable moments all converging into the last 24 hours.

At the service, the minister talked about adjustments — the many adjustments that life calls for us to make. He mentioned the loss of her first husband in a boating accident, the changes brought by remarrying and starting a second family. And then he suggested that as she crossed over from this life in the next, she made the final adjustment. 

There was a hush in the church after he spoke those words. 

And the truth of sanctuary came back to me, as it often does. Resilience. Realignment. Adjustments. 

Yes.

We never know what is coming. Sudden changes, big surprises, shocks, delights, even, at times, death. To cope, we have to constantly be ready to make adjustments to our expectations and our plans. It’s really the only way to hold on to any sense of equilibrium. 

That’s where sanctuary comes in. A sanctuary gives us a place to go, to heal and to hide when we need it. A sanctuary gives us safe harbor to decompress and shed the stresses of the day. 

A daily sanctuary practice makes it possible for us to nurture ourselves and refill the vessel of our energy and our being. It reminds us to pause. And in that pause lies the essence of possibility: the possibility of adjustment. 

I know I’ve adjusted to many things along my way. I’m sure you have too. 

I wish I could promise you that there were an end to the changes we have to make as humans alive on the earth. I can’t do that—no one can. But I can offer you a way to bend, rather than break. A way to flow, rather than obstruct. And that secret is in finding sanctuary for yourself, in your home, in your life, and in your heart.

With love and gratitude,

Lisa